Cracks on Lonsdale railway station overpass

CLAIMS that cracking on the overpass at the Lonsdale railway station pose a threat to public safety have been dismissed by Transport Minister Stephen Mullighan, who said the damage had been inspected and was found not to be serious.

“The advice we have from our engineers is they don’t anticipate structural damage or risk to the public from either using the bridge or being in the vicinity of the bridge,’’ Mr Mullighan said.

Former dean of engineering at Adelaide University Kenneth Moxham was employed by the Liberal Party to look at the bridge and said he was “concerned’’.

“I am concerned there is a very serious problem with what I can see,’’ Dr Moxham said.

“It is possible, not probable, but possible that the whole bridge could fall down.’’

However, Mr Mullighan said the bridge had been assessed and such fears were groundless, although some minor repairs would be required.

“We would be very worried if it was a major structural damage, but there is not.’’

The State Government has committed to releasing the audit of 1500 bridges across the state.

The audit was commissioned after a major design flaw was discovered at the tram overpass on South Rd, which caused it to be closed after concrete fell to the road below, but Mr Mullighan would not give a date for the release.

Meanwhile, Mr Mullighan was claiming an “Australian first’’ on Sunday on the technique being used to build a new bridge over South Rd at Darlington as part of the $620 million north-south corridor redevelopment.

The beginning of construction of the new bridge for the Darlington Interchange.Two, 180m long bridges will be built off-site before being moved to Darlington using remote-controlled transporters. The new bridges will carry northbound traffic over the Southern Expressway.

Mr Mullighan said building the bridges at another site and moving them to their final location would mean less disruption for drivers.

: This construction method means rather than disrupting traffic for several months while building these bridges, instead we will only have been having disruption for two weekends while the bridges are being lifted into place.’’

He said it would be one weekend in October and one in November.

However, he said the decision to complete the Darlington project, while simultaneously building a rail spur to Flinders University would delay completion of the upgrade by about six months.